Kane County Board to vote June 12 on ethics ordinance, amendments

Updated: July 8, 2012 6:50PM

GENEVA — The Kane County Board will be getting a second chance to pass an updated ethics ordinance.

The proposed ordinance originally went before the board for a vote last December, but was sent back to committee.

Now, it will be up for vote June 12.

But this time there will be three proposed amendments that the board will discuss, suggested by various board members.

There has been a sense of urgency to pass a newly rewritten ordinance, as the Human Services Committee has been working on changes for more than a year. The process began when outgoing State’s Attorney John Barsanti suggested there may be parts of the current ordinance that are not enforceable.

“We need to get this ordinance in place,” County Board member John Hoscheit, R-St. Charles, said.

The first of the three amendments was proposed by Maggie Auger, R-Algonquin, and was to add an administrative fee of up to $5,000 that would be paid by the ethics ordinance violator. Auger said that she would like the fine to be placed at the judge’s discretion.

State’s Attorney Joe McMahon said that there is no legal prohibition against adding a potential fee, but that it could be seen as an effort to recoup attorney fees, which cannot be done in an ordinance case.

The second amendment up for discussion, proposed by Aurora Democrat Bonnie Kunkel, is to add those involved in a civil union into the language of the bill.

The final amendment up for discussion was proposed by Jim Mitchell, R-North Aurora. Mitchell’s amendment allows for the forwarding of statements of economic interest and campaign finance disclosures to the state’s attorney’s office upon the request of the chairman, board members, employees or members of the public at large.

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